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Murach’s ASP.NET Core MVC
If you understand HTML/CSS and C#, you’re ready to learn how to develop ASP.NET Core MVC apps with our latest web programming book.
- This book gets you off to a fast start whether or not you have prior experience with server-side development.
- It teaches you all the skills you need to develop bulletproof, database-driven web apps. That includes using endpoint routing, Razor views, model binding, data validation, dependency injection, Bootstrap for responsive design, EF (Entity Framework) Core for database handling, xUnit and Moq for unit testing, and Identity for authentication.
- When you’re done, this book does double duty as the best on-the-job reference that money can buy.
College Instructors
Go to our instructor’s site to learn more about this book and its instructor’s materials.
I'm a first-time customer who has recently purchased your ASP.NET Core MVC book, and I have to say I'm greatly impressed. I appreciate how the content has been structured throughout. [It] was actually fun from start to finish (and I've read many, many programming books before).”
Shannon Fairchild, Senior Software Developer, Kingston, Ontario, Canada
- About this Book
- Table of Contents
- FREE Downloads
- Book FAQs
- Corrections
- Reviews
What this book does
Section 1: Get off to a fast start
To get you started fast, this 5-chapter section shows how to use Visual Studio to design, code, and test multi-page ASP.NET Core apps that use the MVC pattern, work with a database, and use Bootstrap to make the apps look great on all screen sizes. After that, you’re ready to review and expand upon this section to raise your skills up to a professional level.
Section 2: Master the essential skills
This 8-chapter section presents the ASP.NET Core MVC skills you’ll use every day:
- Use endpoint routing to provide user-friendly URLs that can improve SEO
- Use Razor views and layouts to display the user interface
- Transfer data between controllers and views
- Use session state and cookies to maintain state
- Use model binding to simplify your code
- Validate data on the client and the server
- Use EF (Entity Framework) Core to work with a database using Code First or Database First development
- Study an extensive, real-world website that shows how all the skills in this section work together
Section 3: Add more skills as you need them
This 4-chapter section presents skills that will take your web development skills to the next level:
- Use dependency injection (DI) to make your code more flexible and easier to test
- Use xUnit and Moq to automate the testing of your apps
- Use tag helpers, partial views, and view components to reduce code duplication in your views
- Use authorization to secure parts of your website
- Use ASP.NET Core Identity to authenticate users
- Use a text editor named Visual Studio Code, an increasingly popular alternative to the Visual Studio IDE
Who this book is for
This book is for anyone who knows the basics of HTML/CSS and C# and wants to learn how to use the ASP.NET Core platform to develop MVC web apps. That’s true whether you’re new to web development or whether you have experience with another web development platform.
What software you need
To program using this book, you can install Visual Studio with the .NET Core workload as described in appendix A (Windows) or B (macOS). On Windows, this installs all the software you need, including:
- Visual Studio
- .NET Core 3.1
- support for C# 8.0
- a web server called Kestrel
- a database server called SQL Server Express LocalDB
On macOS, installing Visual Studio installs all of the software you need, except SQL Server Express LocalDB. Since LocalDB isn’t supported on macOS, we recommend using SQLite instead as described in appendix B.
The perfect companion books
The first 8 chapters of Murach’s HTML5 and CSS3 present the HTML and CSS skills that you need as a prerequisite to developing ASP.NET Core MVC web apps. Similarly, the first 3 sections of Murach’s C# (7th Edition) present the C# programming skills that you need.
Both of these books work for beginners as well as professionals. They let you learn new skills whenever you need them. And they’re the best on-the-job reference books that money can buy.
What people say about this book
“Just a note to say WOW! Your launch of the ASP.NET Core MVC text is a much needed contribution to the topic of ASP.NET Core. Loads of important information all in one place.”
- K.S., College Instructor, Chicago, Illinois
“I'm a first-time customer who has recently purchased your ASP.NET Core MVC book, and I have to say I'm greatly impressed. I appreciate how the content has been structured throughout. My biggest gripe with most programming books is they tend to ramble on with irrelevant details, with a sea of code being scattered across multiple pages. I'm glad to experience your different approach to formatting; I think it's a great method for learning.”
- Shannon Fairchild, Senior Software Developer, Kingston, Ontario, Canada
“This is the best book on ASP.Net Core by far.”
- Posted at an online bookseller
“A sound investment: Used to refresh my knowledge and to migrate from asp.net mvc 5 to asp.net core mvc 3. This is the 4th book by Murach that I’ve read; like the others, it provides solid knowledge, presented in stages and very well explained.”
- Posted in French at an online bookseller
“There are a total of 17 chapters, and the first 5 chapters alone could suffice for most of the development needs on ASP.NET Core MVC 3. All the rest of the book are insights of all kinds, and I was very surprised at how much nothing is taken for granted and how far you go into the maze of the framework. Truly a very complete book.”
- Luigi Zambetti, Engineer, Milan, Italy
“Murach has a stellar reputation for producing excellent technical books and training material, and this title on ASP.NET Core MVC development is no different. I found the coverage of the topic to be perfect for my training classes, and the end-of-chapter exercises all worked. My students were equally happy with the book.”
- Mark Dunn, Trainer, Georgia
View the table of contents for this book in a PDF: Table of Contents (PDF)
Click on any chapter title to display or hide its content.
Section 1 Get off to a fast start
Chapter 1 An introduction to web programming with ASP.NET Core MVC
An introduction to web apps
The components of a web app
How static web pages are processed
How dynamic web pages are processed
An introduction to the MVC pattern
An introduction to ASP.NET Core MVC
Three ASP.NET programming models for web apps
Some web components of .NET and .NET Core
An introduction to ASP.NET Core middleware
How state works in a web app
Tools for working with ASP.NET Core MVC apps
An introduction to Visual Studio
An introduction to Visual Studio Code
How an ASP.NET Core MVC app works
How coding by convention works
How a controller passes a model to a view
How a view uses Razor code, tag helpers, and Bootstrap CSS classes
How the Startup.cs file configures the middleware for an app
Chapter 2 How to develop a single-page MVC web app
How to create a Core MVC web app
How to start a new web app
How to select a template
How to set up the MVC folders
How to add a controller
How to add a Razor view
How to configure an MVC web app
How to run a web app and fix errors
How to run a web app
How to find and fix errors
How to work with a model
How to add a model
How to add a Razor view imports page
How to code a strongly-typed view
How to handle GET and POST requests
How to work with a strongly-typed view
The Future Value app after handling GET and POST requests
How to organize the files for a view
How to add a CSS style sheet
How to add a Razor layout, view start, and view
The code for a Razor layout, view start, and view
How to validate user input
How to set data validation rules in the model
The model class with data validation
How to check the data validation
How to display validation error messages
The Future Value app after validating data
Chapter 3 How to make a web app responsive with Bootstrap
An introduction to responsive web design
A responsive user interface
How to add client-side libraries such as Bootstrap and jQuery
How to manage client-side libraries with LibMan
How to enable client-side libraries
How to get started with Bootstrap
The classes of the Bootstrap grid system
How the Bootstrap grid system works
How to work with forms
How to work with buttons, images, and jumbotrons
How to work with margins and padding
The code for the view of the Future Value app
More skills for Bootstrap CSS classes
How to format HTML tables
How to align and capitalize text
How to provide context
More skills for Bootstrap components
How to work with button groups
How to work with icons and badges
How to work with button dropdowns
How to work with list groups
How to work with alerts and breadcrumbs
How to work with navigation bars
How to create navs
How to create navbars
How to position navbars
Chapter 4 How to develop a data-driven MVC web app
An introduction to the Movie List app
The pages of the app
The folders and files of the app
How to use EF Core
How to add EF Core to your project
How to create a DbContext class
How to seed initial data
How to add a connection string
How to enable dependency injection
How to use migrations to create the database
How to work with data
How to select data
How to insert, update, and delete data
How to view the generated SQL statements
The Movie List app
The Home controller
The Home/Index view
The Movie controller
The Movie/Edit view
The Movie/Delete view
How to work with related data
How to relate one entity to another
How to update the DbContext class and the seed data
How to use migrations to update the database
How to select related data and display it on the Movie List page
How to display related data on the Add and Edit Movie pages
How to make user-friendly URLs
How to make URLs lowercase with a trailing slash
How to add a slug
Chapter 5 How to manually test and debug an ASP.NET Core web app
How to test an ASP.NET Core web app
How to run a web app
How to use the browser’s developer tools
How to use the Internal Server Error page
How to use the Exception Helper
How to use the debugger
How to use breakpoints
How to work in break mode
How to monitor variables and expressions
How to use tracepoints
Section 2 Master the essential skills
Chapter 6 How to work with controllers and routing
How to use the default route
How to configure the default route
How the default route works
How to code a simple controller and its actions
How to code a controller that uses the id segment
How to create custom routes
How to include static content in a route
How to work with multiple routing patterns
How to use attribute routing
How to change the routing for an action
More skills for changing the routing for an action
How to change the routing for a controller
Best practices for creating URLs
How to work with areas
How to set up areas
How to associate controllers with areas
Chapter 7 How to work with Razor views
How to use Razor syntax
How to work with code blocks and inline expressions
How to code inline loops
How to code inline conditional statements
Essential skills for Razor views
The starting folders and files for an app
How to code controllers that return views
How to create a default layout and enable tag helpers
How to use tag helpers to generate URLs for links
Three views that use the default layout and tag helpers
The three views displayed in a browser
More skills for Razor views
More tag helpers for generating URLs for links
How to format numbers in a view
How to work with a model
How to pass a model to a view
How to display model properties in a view
How to bind model properties to HTML elements
How to bind a list of items to an element
How to display a list of model objects
How to work with Razor layouts
How to create and apply a layout
How to nest layouts
How to use view context
How to use sections
The Guitar Shop website
The user interface for customers
The user interface for administrators
Chapter 8 How to transfer data from controllers
How to use ActionResult objects
An introduction to ActionResult subtypes
How to return ActionResult objects
How to use the ViewData and ViewBag properties
How to use the ViewData property
How to use the ViewBag property
The NFL Teams 1.0 app
The user interface
The model layer
The Home controller
The layout
The Home/Index view
How to work with view models
How to create a view model
The updated Index() action method
The updated Home/Index view
How to redirect a request
How to use the ActionResult classes for redirection
How to use the Post-Redirect-Get pattern
How to use the TempData property
How to get started with TempData
How to use methods of the TempData dictionary
The NFL Teams 2.0 app
The user interface
The view model classes
The Details() action method
The Home/Index view
The Home/Details view
Chapter 9 How to work with session state and cookies
How ASP.NET MVC handles state
Six ways to maintain state
An introduction to session state
How to work with session state
How to configure an app to use session state
How to work with session state items in a controller
How to get session state values in a view
How to use JSON to store objects in session state
How to extend the ISession interface
How to use a wrapper class
The NFL Teams 3.0 app
The user interface
The session classes
The Home controller
The layout
The Home/Index view
The Home/Details view
The Favorites controller
The Favorites/Index view
How to work with cookies
How to work with session cookies
How to work with persistent cookies
The NFL Teams 4.0 app
The cookies class
The updated session class
The updated Home controller
The updated Favorites controller
Chapter 10 How to work with model binding
An introduction to MVC model binding
How to use controller properties to retrieve GET and POST data
How to use model binding to retrieve GET and POST data
How to use model binding with complex types
Model binding in the NFL Teams app
An action method that binds to primitive types
An action method that binds to complex types
More skills for binding data
Two ways to code a submit button
How to use a submit button to post a name/value pair
How to post an array to an action method
How to control the source of bound values
How to control which values are bound
The ToDo List app
The user interface
The entity classes
The database context class
A utility class for filtering
The Home controller
The layout
The Home/Index view
The Home/Add view
Chapter 11 How to validate data
How data validation works in MVC
The default data validation provided by model binding
How to use data attributes for validation
A Registration page with data validation
How to control the user experience
How to format validation messages with CSS
How to check validation state and use code to set validation messages
How to display model-level and property-level validation messages
How to enable client-side validation
How to customize server-side validation
How to create a custom data attribute
How to pass values to a custom data attribute
How to check multiple properties
How to customize client-side validation
How to add data attributes to the generated HTML
How to add a validation method to the jQuery validation library
How to work with remote validation
The Registration app
The user interface and CSS
The Customer and RegistrationContext classes
The MinimumAgeAttribute class
The minimum-age JavaScript file
The Validation and Register controllers
The layout
The Register/Index view
Chapter 12 How to use EF Core
How to create a database from code
How to code entity and DB context classes
How to configure the database
How to manage configuration files
EF commands for working with a database
How to use EF migration commands
How to work with relationships
How entities are related
How to configure a one-to-many relationship
How to configure a one-to-one relationship
How to configure a many-to-many relationship
How to control delete behavior
The Bookstore database classes
The entity classes
The context and configuration classes
How to create code from a database
How to generate DB context and entity classes
How to configure a generated DB context class
How to modify a generated entity class
How to work with data in a database
How to query data
How to work with projections and related entities
How to insert, update, and delete data
How to handle concurrency conflicts
How to check for concurrency conflicts
How handle a concurrency exception
How to encapsulate your EF code
How to code a data access class
How to use a generic query options class
How to use the repository pattern
How to use the unit of work pattern
Chapter 13 The Bookstore website
The user interface and folder structure
The end user pages
The admin user pages
The folders and files
Some general-purpose code
Extension methods for sessions and strings
The generic QueryOptions class
The generic Repository class
The paging and sorting of the Author Catalog
The custom route and the GridDTO class
The RouteDictionary class
The GridBuilder class
The Author/List view model and the Author controller
The Author/List view
The paging, sorting, and filtering of the Book Catalog
The custom route and the BooksGridDTO class
The FilterPrefix class and the updated RouteDictionary class
The BooksGridBuilder class
The BookQueryOptions and BookstoreUnitOfWork classes
The Book/List view model and the Book controller
The Book/List view
The Cart page
Extension methods for cookies
The user interface
The model classes
The Cart controller
The Cart/Index view
The book search of the Admin pages
The user interface
The SearchData and SearchViewModel classes
The Search() action methods of the Book controller
The Delete() action method of the Genre controller
Section 3 Add more skills as you need them
Chapter 14 How to use dependency injection and unit testing
How to use dependency injection (DI)
How to configure your app for DI
How to use DI with controllers
How to use DI with an HttpContextAccessor object
How to use DI with action methods
How to use DI with views
How to get started with unit testing
How unit tests work
How to add an xUnit project to a solution
How to write a unit test
How to run a unit test
How to test methods that have dependencies
How to use a fake repository object
How to use a fake TempData object
How to create fake objects with Moq
How to work with mock objects
How to mock a repository object
How to mock a TempData object
How to mock an HttpContextAccessor object
The Bookstore.Tests project
The Test Explorer
The BookControllerTests class
The AdminBookControllerTests class
The CartTests class
Chapter 15 How to work with tag helpers, partial views, and view components
An introduction to tag helpers
How to register and use tag helpers
How tag helpers compare to HTML helpers
How to create custom tag helpers
How to create a custom tag helper
How to create a tag helper for a non-standard HTML element
How to use extension methods with tag helpers
How to control the scope of a tag helper
How to use a tag helper to add elements
More skills for custom tag helpers
How to use properties with a tag helper
How to work with the model property that an element is bound to
How to use dependency injection with a tag helper
How to create a conditional tag helper
How to generate URLs in a tag helper
How to work with partial views
How to create and use a partial view
How to pass data to a partial view
How to work with view components
How to create and use a view component
How to pass data to a view component
How view components can simplify an app
The Bookstore app
The Book Catalog page
The updated ActiveNavbar tag helper
The layout
The Book/List view
Chapter 16 How to authenticate and authorize users
An introduction to authentication
Three types of authentication
How individual user account authentication works
An introduction to ASP.NET Identity
How to restrict access to controllers and actions
How to get started with Identity
How to add Identity classes to the DB context
How to add Identity tables to the database
How to configure the middleware for Identity
How to add Log In/Out buttons and links to the layout
How to start the Account controller
How to register a user
The Register view model
The Account/Register view
The Register() action method for POST requests
The LogOut() action method for POST requests
How to log in a user
The Login view model
The Account/Login view
The LogIn() action method for POST requests
How to work with roles
Properties and methods for working with roles
The User entity and view model
The User controller and its Index() action method
The User/Index view
Other action methods of the User controller
The code that restricts access
How to seed roles and users
More skills for working with Identity
How to change a user’s password
How to add more user registration fields
Chapter 17 How to use Visual Studio Code
How to work with existing projects
How to install VS Code
How to open and close a project folder
How to view and edit files
How to run and stop a project
How to create the database for a project
A summary of .NET EF Core commands
How to start a new project
How to create a new project
How to add NuGet packages to a project
How to work with the folders and files
How to install and manage client-side libraries
How to debug a project
How to set a breakpoint
How to work in break mode
Appendixes
Appendix A How to set up Windows for this book
How to install Visual Studio
How to install the source code for this book
How to create the databases for this book
Appendix B How to set up macOS for this book
How to install Visual Studio
How to install the source code for this book
Problems and solutions when using macOS with this book
How to install and use DB Browser for SQLite
Sample chapters
Chapter 1: An introduction to web programming with ASP.NET Core MVC
This chapter gives you the background you need to start writing ASP.NET Core MVC apps. It describes how web apps work, how ASP.NET Core MVC apps work, and what software you need for developing these apps.
Chapter 2: How to develop a single-page MVC web app
This chapter teaches you how to use Visual Studio to code and test a single-page ASP.NET Core MVC web app that calculates the future value of a series of investments. That includes how to work with controllers, model binding, Razor views, and data validation.
Chapter 1 PDF Download Now
Chapter 2 PDF Download Now
The book applications and exercises
This download includes:
- The source code for the applications that are presented throughout the book
- The starting points for the exercises that are presented at the end of each chapter
- The solutions to the exercises so you can check your work
The appendix in the book describes how to install and use these files.
Exe file for Windows (65.1Mb) Download Now
Zip file for Windows (64.9Mb) Download Now
Zip file for macOS (67.7Mb) Download Now
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